Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Eliminating Freestyle Head Rotation with Champain?

Too much head rotation when you are doing either Freestyle or Backstroke is a very common fault; found in experienced swimmers as well as beginners; that can cause all sorts of issues when you are swimming. Unfortunately it can also be very persistent and sometimes difficult to eliminate.

I am always on the lookout for different methods to help swimmers recognize what that are doing and eliminating the fault.

It's a little easier to fix in backstroke as all you have to do is get the swimmer to swim with a half full plastic or polly styrene cup on their heads. It's not the easiest thing to do but it is fun and when mastered tends to fix a number of backstroke faults. This solution however does not work with freestyle.

With freestyle, unlike backstroke, there is no flat surface, like the forehead, to rest the cup on. Not to mention the cap or hair or goggles or snorkel getting in the way. So you have to visualize. That is, you have to imaging the cup being there.